Francis's Pursuit
by zooman
Summary: My story tells about how Francis tracked Logan and Jessica through the wilderness.


Francis's Pursuit

Francis held up his hands to bright sunlight, a look of shock widening over his handsome features. His laser gun was safely holstered. "Where am I?" he thought nervously to himself as he walked slowly out of the ruined ice cavern, and moved down a slope into a dense jungle thicket. "What is this place?!" he kept running the fearful thoughts over and over and over again in his head, as he just quietly in the middle of the tropical canopy for a few minutes, "this place looks alot like the botany section on Johnson Level back in the city." The young sandman just looked around himself carefully as he watched a bright blue macaw climbing up the side of tree and perching itself on a branch. He stared at the creature in awe. "Strangest bird I ever saw," he noted as he slowly approached the tree, "not like any of the birds in the botany section." he blue macaw took one look at Francis and flew off far above the trees.

Francis wandered in a daze through the heavy jungle. "Logan and Jessica have gotten head start, they could be miles from here," calculated the young sandman as he pushed several vines out of his way, "if I find them they're dead meat," the sandman glared with an evil smile," NO ONE ESCAPES LAST DAY! NO ONE!" Francis speeded up his trot through the jungle. He just moving onwards and onwards, "I will just keep looking. A sandman NEVER stops looking! NEVER! A sandman is never off duty! Never lets up on a runner, and my ex partner is no exception."

The sandman just kept up his motions across the thickening forest for hours. Suddenly a rabbit- a large brown haired one-darted out of the grass and was running past his boots. "I'm starving for some lunch so here goes," Francis thought uneasily to himself, as he whipped out his laser gun with both hands and aimed the gun at the fleeing animal, pulled the trigger and zapped the bunny with one shot! The rabbit collapsed on it's left side, bleeding from the large gaping burnt hole in the left side of it's body. The loud shrills of various monkeys and tropical birds echoed from all about him in the jungle. He dropped his gun on the ground.

Francis carefully and slowly kneeled down to the body of the brown rabbit and lifted the bleeding body to his mouth. His mouth gushed with blood as he chewed into the raw rabbit meat.

Then his eyes zeroed in on a large creature that he spied moving about in the bushes ahead of him. Francis gulped down the last of the raw meat, then dropped the remains on the ground and stood up nervously. His eyes widened. He then bent over and picked up his laser gun and aimed it steadily at the creature moving about in the bushes ahead of him. He ran backwards.

A second later a gigantic, brown and red, three headed snake slithered out of the bushes and came towards the sandman! The reptile was huge! The size of a small building! All three heads opened their giant, sharp jaws as wide as possible, and leaped straight for the sandman's jugular! Francis threw himself out of the direction of the snake-horizontally-into some bushes near the right of him while shrieking in fear. As he threw himself he blasted his laser gun at all three heads! The huge reptile let out a death scream and died.

Francis went running aimlessly through the jungle, tears streaming down his face. "Where am I!? he pondered to himself over and over and over again as he ran while waving his laser gun, his black sandman outfit covered in quite a few grass stains, "this is a nightmare!"

Francis stopped running and went into a brisk walk through the jungle. "Find Logan and the girl remember?" he reminded himself as he sat down on his ass to rest in a very dense thicket, " a sandman fears nothing! A sandman NEVER lets a runner live! And Logan is now a runner and he must pay!"

Francis turned his head to the left and noticed a small pond in the middle of some grass. He panted and crawled through the grass towards the pond, while putting his laser gun back in it's holster. He lay on his stomach and dipped his face into the water and drank the still water. The sunlight shone down through the treetops and beat down on his head. The sounds of tropical birds and monkeys screamed out from all around him.

It was approaching nightfall. Francis slowed down his walk through the jungle and glanced up at the darkening treetops. He saw a large flock of vampire bats far above him roosting on some vines and tree branches.

Francis wandered out of the jungle and came to a wide glade, of long grass and dandelions. Francis sat down cross legged in the grass. A few seconds later it was complete darkness, a full moon came out. Francis collapsed on his back and drifted into sound asleep. "Logan can NEVER escape me!" he thought to himself in a scary kind of way, "NEVER! No runner must be allowed to survive!" A loud growl of a jungle cat way off in the distance! Francis sat up with a start and quickly took out his laser gun in his left hand and aimed it in the sound of the growls. The growls went silent. Francis holstered his weopon and uneasily la back down on the grass going back to sleep. "No runner must escape the sandman!" he kept thinking to himself over and over again as he fell into sound sleep, "NO RUNNER! NO ONE ESCAPES LAST DAY!"

The next morning Francis was stalking quietly through the jungle as he followed a giant sized wart hog snorting loudly past some trees. Francis was right behind the animal. "I remember seeing images of such animals in Library 0," the young sandman thought to himself, as he ran his right hand over his long dark brown hair, and waved his laser gun in front of him in his left hand: the futuristic weopon slowly being aimed at the back of the huge warthog, "time for breakfast," he thought with an evil sneer. He fired his gun at the squealing pig who collapsed on his left side, bleeding heavily through the blasted, burnt hole in it's side. Francis smiled then grinned and jumped towards the dead creature. He got down on his belly and dug his face into the warm, bloody flesh and stuffed hot pieces of bloody raw meat into his hungry mouth.

The hot sun beat down on the young sandman as he wandered aimlessly out of the jungle and onto a smooth muddy road, running across a vast grassy field. He began a slow trek tiredly down the road. "If I find Logan and the girl both of them die!" the sandman thought to himself with a vicious glare in his eyes. Beads of sweat running down his face, "nobody escape a sandman! Nobody!"

Francis walked wearily down the muddy road untill he came to a collection of odd small ruined buildings and strange, metal four wheeled objects. located just at the left side of the road. His curiousity piqued, Francis wandered off the road and carefully approached the ruined looking buildings.

The buildings were all small and were all a faded gray colour. They were all square shaped, with tiled rooftops. Francis just shook his head and quickly whipped out his laser gun in his right hand, as he stared in awe at the odd looking structures. Parked in front of the structures were these weird, large, metal four wheeled vehicles of all different colours-red, yellow, dark green, pink. The wheels were tires. There were large cracked and smashed windows on all the vehicles and what looked like smaller wheels situated on a control panel. Each vehicle had rows of four seats. The strange looking vehicles were all heavily dented, and rusted and covered in mud stains.

The young sandman careful encircled this one large blue, slender bodied vehicle and examined every detail of the machine while clutching his laser gun. He saw the word PONTIAC in faded silver, block letters along the left side of the body of the vehicle. Francis just slowly shook his head. He then chuckled a little bit as he looked out at the whole landscape of all the many small ruined buildings. "Are you hiding here Logan?!" Francis shouted out loudly as he moved carefully and with much stealth towards one of the buildings, "I'm going to find you! No runner EVER escapes me!" He made another evil chuckle.

A loud animal growl! Francis turned to his right. A massive bengal tiger stood watching the sandman way off in the distance. Francis aimed his laser gun at the huge orange and black striped jungle cat. The animal just ran off.

The hot sun kept beating down on Francis's head as he turned towards this one faded and cracked light green building and kicked down the black door. his laser gun pointed in front of himself.

The young sandman walked all about a small room which was littered with trash, and dusty brown, faded furniture-broken table, chairs, a sofa. He noted a large, square shaped object lying in the middle of the floor. There was a cracked glass screen in the centre of the object.

Francis walked casually into what appeared to be a kitchen area. There were cracked and dusty brown cabinets on the dirty yellow wallpapered walls in front of him. Francis looked down at a collection of dirty and dusty envelopes lying on a faded orange counter top, by a broken down water faucet. DUTENNS-MR. MRS SHANE-read the black words printed across the envelopes.

Francis let his eyes carouse up and down the counter top untill he spied a white large paper covered in black words with massive black headlines at the top of the paper. Francis, a curious look on his features, stepped slowly over towards the newspaper, and read the headlines. CHANEY MOON IN NEW YORK-the young sandman scanned over the faded black wording on the paper in front of him: _the sixteen year old idol of over ten million young people worldwide will hold a speech in New York on Tuesday night at seven, to discuss his ideas for euthanasia as a way to solve the world overpopulation problem. "My time is upon the generations, " Moon told Time magazine the other day from his chateau in Sydney Australia, "i'm one man in a thousand years to rise up..."_ Francis saw the date on the newspaper: MAY 5, 2003. The young sandman then ran his eyes quickly down the faded newspaper and saw a faded, giant full colour photo of grinning young man, wearing what looked like a silver jumpsuit with a black line going down the middle of it. The teenager was standing on a brown stage, behind a podium, in a vast dark blue auditorium with a huge, crazy grin on his face. He had wavy sandy red hair and his arms were raised up and outwards. His blue eyes shone with excitement. _The beloved idol, Chaney Moon proposed death at age thirty-euthanasia-to over one thousand of his followers last Sunday night. President Clinton had this to say..._Francis looked up, now seemingly uninterested, and turned his head to the entrance entrance way leading out of the ruined kitchen. He slowly raised his laser gun. "Wherever you are Logan, I'll find you out!" thought Francis with determination.

The young sandman walked into what appeared to be an ancient, ruined bedroom. The walls of the large bedroom were yellow and faded and cracked. There were rats running about the floor. The room was laden with thick layers of dust. There was an old, dark red coloured double bed in the centre of the room. There was a large, cracked window on the wall behind the behind showing the grassy vista outside in the sunlight. A dirty and dust laden yellow bureau pushed up at the left side of the cracked wall. A Francis slowly waved his laser gun all around the room. He then noticed a large poster hung on the wall. The poster showed a picture- a closeup- of a short, slim good looking dark haired man, with a huge, teethy grin on his face in a blue t shirt. The caption above the image-in big red letters-read TOM CRUISE. Francis paid scant attention to the poster, waved his laser gun, and ran out of the ruined bedroom. "Where are you Logan!? the sandman eagerly thought to himself, "I'll get you yet!"

Francis darted out of the green ruined house and ran over the grass and across the muddy road waving his gun. "NO RUNNER CAN ESCAPE ME!" Francis thought to himself as he moved over the grass as fast as he could, while holstering his laser gun.

He slowed down his pace as he came to large brook in the middle of the grassy field. The sun kept beating down on him, as Francis lay down on his stomach on the grass and dipped his face into the cool water and drank up.

Francis kept wandering through the grass covered landscape untill he came to a strange, ruined dark green vehicle lying on it's left side in the field. Francis took out his laser gun with both hands, as he carefully and steadily approached the odd looking device. Beads of sweat ran down in rivulets down his curious, handsome features. "What is this?" he whispered to himself, amazed. The vehicle had a cracked and bent, black metal blade at the top of it. There were four cracked windows all around it. There were two skeletons inside the ruined, green ancient looking craft. Francis slowly waved his laser gun all around himself, as he examined the weird object. UNITED STATES ARMY HELICOPTER-read the bright, white faded words along the side of the craft. Francis smiled a sinister smile and allowed a heavy evil laugh. "Something very bad must have befallen the 20th century people," Francis thought to himself, "I only recall a few stories from the history vids in the library." Francis holstered his laser gun and moved carefully away from the ruined H-E-L-I-C-O-P-T-E-R! "WHERE ARE YOU LOGAN!? shouted the mocking sandman, "YOU KNOW MY RECORD OF NEVER FAILING TO ZAP A RUNNER, AND I'M NOT STOPPING NOW!" Francis walked off the grassy plain and into a small patch of jungle at the left side of the field. "YOU CAN'T ESCAPE ME LOGAN!" Francis shouted, "INSIDE THE CITY OR OUTSIDE THE CITY I WILL NEVER FAIL TO STOP A RUNNER!"

Francis walked steadily through the small patch of jungle for an hour or so. He heard the loud calls and shouts of monkeys and parrots far above him in the trees. He looked up at the dense canopy. A large black spider monkey swung through the vines far above Francis. Francis made an evil sneer.

The young sandman suddenly came to a huge muddy, brown thatched hut in the middle of the patch of jungle. Francis whipped out his laser gun from his holster-his left hand gripping the weopon as he walked slowly towards the hut.

Francis kicked in the fragile door of the hut. His eyes met three frightened looking, forty something year old brown skinned women all huddled together. All the women had long brown hair, and one woman wore a blue jumpsuit while another wore an orange, skintight, short sleeved dress and yellow boots and another woman wore a brown, skintight, short sleeved dress. The massive enclosure was covered with tables laden with bows and arrows. "WHO ARE YOU!? Francis ordered as he waved his laser gun from frightened woman to woman. Each of the females just stared at the sandman, wide eyed with terror. "Please just go away," pleaded the woman in the blue jumpsuit, "we just want to live in peace." "Who are you?" repeated Francis while making an evil leer, as he continued to wave his gun from one woman to the other, "runners in hiding?!" "What are runners?" asked the female in the orange, skintight dress, "we belong to colonies who survived the holocaust from ages ago, " said the scared woman while nodding her head at Francis, "but you're not from one of the colonies?" Francis just shook his head. "I'm after a man and woman," said Francis as he watched the three scared women, "the man is tall, with long blonde hair and an outfit like mine. He has a broken nose and talks with a slight accent. He's wearing an outfit like mine. the girl has long brown hair and is wearing a white outfit..." "JUST LEAVE US ALONE!" screamed the frightened woman in the blue jumpsuit, "our hubanies are coming back from hunting any minute and will shoot you dead if you don't go!" "I'm not after you!" Francis growled, as he waved his laser gun, "I'm after a man and woman! They're runners from the city!" "We don't know any runners!" shouted the scared woman in the blue jumpsuit, "we just left one of the colonies a year ago to settle here!"

Francis turned and ran out of the hut. He was running through the small patch of jungle, around the left side of the muddy thatched hut when he came upon three fifty something year old men walking in his direction, from out of the dense canopy, each one hauling a dead antelope over his shoulders. Each of the men were brown skinned, one man had short gray hair while the others had long black hair. Each man wore a yellow, skin tight bodysuit and yellow boots. each of them men carried a rifle. "I never saw rifles like that before," Francis thought as he examined the three men. The weopons in their hands were very long, brown and covered with odd shaped, small black gadgets. Each of the men looked with shock at the young sandman, who waved his laser gun from one man to the other. Each of the men raised and aimed their weopons at Francis. Francis ran past the trio and dashed out of the small patch of jungle and back onto the grassy field.

Francis moved stealthily and warily across the grass, the hot sun blaring down upon him.

The sandman came upon another dirt road. He looked down with shock and surprise at the dirt road! Deep in the wet dirt were footprints of a boot-a boot exactly like the one Francis himself wore-and a pair of slippers! Francis let out a loud, evil laugh. "It's only a matter of time now runners!" shouted and laughed Francis with creepy glee as he followed all the tracks in the wet dirt road.

The tracks and the dirt road finally led to a vast swamp. the young sandman grit his teeth with evil determination and went tramping through the reedy mud and muck. He saw some ruins way off on the horizon.

Francis walked towards the huge monument of the huge statute of the odd looking, seated bearded man wearing the equally odd looking suit. The young sandman just looked up and stared in awe at the statute. His mouth drooped wide open. He shook his head in amazement. Then he gathered his evil thoughts and continued to move forwards.

Francis walked, slowly past all the gravestones.

He heard a very loud hissing sound. Way off in the distance, moving out from behind two massive oak trees straight ahead, Francis saw another of the giant sized, three headed brown and red snakes he had noticed earlier. The creature saw the sandman and was slithering at a fast pace right towards him! All three heads glared their massive, sharp fangs and their lashing wicked red tongues. Francis squatted down on his haunches behind one of the gravestones. JULIAN LUCKNOW-2100-2130, was the inscription in black, on the gravestone Francis got down. The sandman fired his laser gun at the oncoming serpent.

The giant hissing, three headed snake leapt out of the way of the laser blast and dived straight onto Francis! Francis screamed in fear as the massive scaly body wrapped itself around him, and some sharp teeth chomped into his right calf muscle! Francis blasted his laser gun at the creature's body and the serpent screamed in pain, as the beast unwrapped it's body from around the helpless sandman and leapt off, into the air, behind Francis and then slithered through the thick grasses, past the gravestones and out of sight.

Francis quickly rose up and gripped his laser gun in his left hand, tighter than ever.

Francis heard people talking from inside one of the large, ruined buildings. "That's Logan's voice alright!" Francis thought to himself with evil excitement, as he crept by tiptoe into the wrecked, ancient structure. "There's nothing to go on to Jessica," Logan's voice said with a tone of regret. "But there is!" the voice of the girl-Jessica, "Sanctuary! I know it exists!" "You want there to be one, " countered Logan's voice. Francis bent down and crept up a broken, long marble staircase, to a balcony high above him. He kept his back down as he crept quietly past rows of old paintings and all kinds of junk littered about the balcony. "So many people who don't want to die, " Logan's voice argued, "but it doesn't exist! It never existed! Just the hope!" Francis dived quietly to behind a ruined bookshelf at the back of the balcony. He gripped his laser gun. "Your wrong!" cried Jessica, "it has to exist!" "Oh Jessica!" pleaded Logan. Francis leaned his body against the wall at the left side of the bookshelf and gripped his laser gun. "You'll be dead soon runners," Francis thought to himself.

Logan thought to himself about how he'd called the other sandmen when he and Jessica first came upon the runners, in the city. "I suddenly thought the runners would kill us, so I called the sandmen as protection. Mabey it was a mistake," Logan thought uneasily to himself, "it didn't seem like I had a choice at the time." Jessica was sobbing. "Oh don't cry," soothed the old man


End file.
